WE say goodbye to our award-winning writer and immensely talented reporter Tanya Waterworth this week.
A while back I wrote about friendleagues and how we become almost family with some of the people we work with.
Those whose homes we may never have visited, but whose family we know by name and shared anecdotes, trials and successes.
Tanya is one of those people and it is a terribly sad time for us.
What her departure brings close to home is how many Saffers are moving away from our shores and we join an increasing number of people saying goodbye to family or people they care about.
The couch research centre has come across so many tweets from people heading off.
Most express sadness about leaving the country of their birth, one which they dearly love.
Many, such as Tanya, leave to join family who have made the journey before them.
They find themselves in a position where they have fewer family members ‒ children, parents, siblings ‒ in South Africa than abroad and there is a hole they have to fill.
Others, the couch has found on Twitter, are angry.
They feel they have been forced into exile because they have no hope for the future. They are sad to find themselves in a situation not of their making and having to make such a painful decision.
A long and ongoing looting of their taxes is one reason commonly cited ‒ one even said the state was now saying goodbye to a previously solid believer in the country and a substantial tax provider. The tweeter’s family ‒ all high earners and considerable contributors to the state coffers – were all leaving too.
The country is bleeding talent, as we know with Tanya.
She has been on your pages with stories that amuse, amaze and, sometimes, break your heart and shock.
Her hard work and tenacity earned her a Vodacom Journalist of the Year (regional) award and an insurance industry shake-up across the board.
She interviewed a heartbroken woman whose husband had been gunned down in his driveway. A year on, she called Tanya to tell her the insurer which held the man’s life policy rejected her claim because he had not disclosed that he had been tested for diabetes.
It took Tanya three weeks of digging, asking tough questions of very defensive folk and probing the legalities of the issue.
When the story was published ‒ in the IOS and the Saturday Star ‒ it went viral. People were outraged and social media lit up.
Insurance companies revisited their policies and others in a similar position benefited.
That is what real reporters do. Their stories make a difference, change lives and try to hold people accountable.
And not only for people. A passionate animal lover, Tanya also worked hard to make a difference in animals’ lives.
From reporting on the cruel donkey trade to heroic rescues of cats and dogs in drain pipes, Tanya avoided the sentimental but told their stories with compassion.
I have not seen Tanya in two years, thanks to Covid and associated health issues.
I will miss her emails, chats, WhatsApps and what often became looooong calls.
Above all, our team will miss her skill, vivacious personality and uncrushable spirit.
Go well, Tan.
- Lindsay Slogrove is the news editor
The Independent on Saturday